For Americans planning on watching on tape delay, I won't give away who won the finals of the men's 100m dash on the London track, but I will note who didn't make it to the finals for the eighth consecutive Olympics, beginning with 1984: a non-black. That's 64 men in a row of primarily black African descent.

Three non-blacks were among the 24 semifinalists striving for the eight spots in the finals:

A Chinese fellow who then ran an unimpressive 10.28.

A young Japanese runner, Ryota Yamagata, who failed to advance with a decent 10.10. The Japanese typically have one or two semifinalists in the Olympic 100m, although I don't think they've made the finals since the Los Angeles Olympics of 1932.

Most interestingly, an 18-year-old U.K. runner Adam Gemili, who appears to be largely a swarthy Caucasian of Middle Eastern descent, who finished third in his semifinal at 10.06, just shy of the 10.02 needed to move on.

The fastest white 100m man of all time, France's Christophe Lemaitre, who has a personal best of 9.92, decided to pass up on the 100m in favor of concentrating on the 200m where he felt he has a better chance of medaling.